cold air intake question

[CamaroAJ]

since moving my engine back i have alot of room in front of the engine and i want to lay the radiator down and vent that through the hood along the lines of the C6R hoods.

now what i am thinking is i can gain a few more inches by getting rid of the pipeing for the throttle body and putting the intake on backwards. there are two ways to go about plumbing the air into the intake.

option 1. i can either build an air box that seals to the cowl hood and then run a tube to the MAF then the TB. while this will work fine it won't look as clean under the hood and kinda clutter up everything.

option 2. i can turn the cowling area at the base of the windshield into a air box. i would need to build it in such a way that washing the car or driving in the rain would not suck up water.

i am open to other ideas, this is just something i am kicking around and would be just another thing to set the car apart from the others and function first and foremost.

[Bryce]

I like option 2, vintage transam did something similar.

[JEFFTATE]

Corvette Racing uses a different intake manifold with TWO separate throttle bodies and TWO air intake tubes that go around the vented area in the hood..
It would be very expensive to do that , but you could use a split intake tube and one throttle body on yours.

[CamaroAJ]

i know about corvette racings. what i was thinking is turning the intake around, then the throttle body would be on the back of the engine.

[Denvervet]

Turning the manifold could be a neat idea...if it works with the water ports on the heads to match up....well the intake runners too. You could fab up something into the cowl area and been done before by others on here. I don't think water would be a problem if you just kept the floor of the connection above the floor of that inner cowl area so water wouldn't run in there via gravity. Personally I like that look better then the factory cowl hood intake/gasket setup. Check out DSE past projects..I know they did that .......I think on one of Dale Jrs camaros.

[ammoyer]

I've been considering the same cold air intake from the cowl area of my A-body. The base of the windshield is a great high pressure area to pull air from at speed. Some folks have claimed 0.10-0.15 decrease in 1/4 mile times by doing so.

I was really inspired by DSE's build of Jr's 2nd gen. However, if you check out the build pics at DSE's site, you will notice that it is all fake. There is no opening into the firewall, just a flange to help locate the rear of the air cleaner which also has several ~2" holes to the engine compartment that defeats the purpose of the CAI. Hugely disappointed to say the least.

My biggest issue with it on my car is the base and front part of the cowl plenum float about 1/2"-3/4" off the firewall. I can't figure a clever way to seal/weld the ducting from the plenum through the firewall. I may have to temporarily remove the top of the cowl in order to gain access to weld the ducting to the plenum and then piece the firewall together around the new duct stub.

Go for it.

[CamaroAJ]

Turning the manifold could be a neat idea...if it works with the water ports on the heads to match up....well the intake runners too.

its a LS1. no water ports to worry about and the intake runners will line up with the intake on forwards or backwards. :twothumbs

[CarlC]

If you ditch the MAF and go SD you may be able to run a 180* tube to an air cleaner that seals against a cowl hood. Fitting the MAF is tough in tight quarters.

[CamaroAJ]

here in ohio the air changes so much that i can tell the differance in the engine performance on a SD tune. i had it done on my C5Z. depending on the weather it would have a 25 hp swing on the same dyno.

i spent a few hours last night measuring and thinking about the intake set up. reinstalled the dash and i have 5 1/4" to play with with the TB sticking through the firewall.

my thinking is i'll cut 3" holes above the kick panel vents so i can still use those. then run a tube from the driver side and passenger side vent into a custom built air box with the filter.

where the TB sticks through the firewall i can build a box and then a door to latch the box closed and seal off the firewall (along the lines of what ford and gm did with the older vans only in steel)

just a cool little tid bit of info. i have a 4th gen camaro dash in the car, my '69 has astro venting. the 4th gen dash vents line up with the '69 dash vents. so when i hook up the a/c to the factory duct work i can also plumb in the astro vents!